


Surrender

by aleksandermorozova



Category: The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Papa!Darkling and Mama!Alina, Ruin and Rising Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-27
Updated: 2014-06-27
Packaged: 2018-02-06 11:23:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1856269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aleksandermorozova/pseuds/aleksandermorozova
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A one-shot written for the prompt 'Acceptance' for The Darkling/Alina. </p><p>Aleksander finds himself proven wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Surrender

The birth of their child was an accident. Four hundred years of being careful, of taking precautions to guard against the possibility and being successful had made them arrogant. To think that all it had taken was one passionate fumbling in the grass outside their home, with only the moon and stars as their witness, for all their effort to come undone was almost laughable.

Still, he did not laugh and nor did she when the truth became undeniable, and as her stomach grew swollen he took care not to brush his fingertips across the bump just as she tried not to be hurt by it.

There was a reason they had agreed not to have a child, after all.

_There are no others like us, and there never will be._

Why then, Alina wondered, could she not help but to hope?

Time passed, and though he was distant, he never left. Months slipped through their fingertips like so much fine sand, drifting away into nothing, and then their daughter was born. For Alina, the moment was magical; setting eyes upon her daughter had made the aches, tears and sweat worth it. She found herself falling in love with her the moment she was in her arms, a smile willing itself onto her lips.

Aleksander could only stare at the gurgling child, some hidden emotion glinting in his quartz gray eyes, and Alina could not hide her surprise when he chose to lean forward, one pale finger resting in their daughter’s tiny fist.

“Anya,” was all he said, and she found herself nodding.

“Anya,” she agreed, and then nothing more was spoken.

. 

.

.

Alina was both pleased and chagrined to find that their daughter took almost completely after her father. A year of growth had given way to thick, downy-soft locks of ebony that framed little Anya’s face. She had dimples and a squealing sort of laugh with brown eyes that hinted towards a strong inner warmth.

“She’s like you,” Alina commented one day as Anya ate her lunch, tiny hands sticky from manhandling the tiny diced peaches that her mother had prepared for her earlier. Aleksander sat across the table from her, reading. He raised an eyebrow but didn’t look up, swallowing his sip of water before responding.

“What brought you to this conclusion?” His tone was neutral. It always was when it came to Anya. He provided for her, did not turn her away when she would reach for him or call for him, but Alina could see the difference in how he behaved. Where he allowed some leniency in his heart for affection towards her, he hadn’t been ready to do the same for Anya. She batted the thoughts away swiftly. She couldn’t dwell on it. Not right now.

“Just look at her,” she said. “She has your coloring, mostly—and she’ll probably be ridiculously intelligent like you, too.” That Alina was almost certain of. Anya was only a few months past her first year, and already she could speak a few words. The one she most proudly conveyed was ‘mama’. Papa was a work in progress. In more ways than one, she thought, staring at Aleksander’s blank face.

“Complimenting me, Alina?” he asked. “Unexpected.”  
  
“Not you,” she said, leaning over to wipe some of the peach juice from Anya’s face. “I’m complimenting Anya. She’ll be a force to be reckoned with. Are you sure you’ll be able to handle her at her most powerful?” It had been a joke, but he didn’t react. Instead, he took another sip of his water, still staring at his book. She noticed that his eyes had not moved from whatever word he’d been focused on before.

“I suppose we’ll find out,” he replied, and Alina wasn’t naïve enough not to miss the double meaning behind his words. Anya gave a sudden cry from her chair, her small bowl flying off the table and on to the floor. Her mother clung to the distraction like glue, scolding Anya with gentle tones that said she wasn’t really mad at all as Aleksander’s fingers tightened around his cup.

.

.

.

“Pa—pu… _pah_!”

Aleksander paused mid-stride to send his daughter a surprised glance. The toddler had begun to hobble towards him on unsteady feet, stubby arms flailing and pale cheeks painted apple red. He turned to face her, crouching slowly and outstretching his arms so that she had something to grab on to. Just in time, too, he noticed, for not moments after he’d done so she had stumbled forward, catching herself on his forearm with a squeal.

“What are you doing, Anya?” he asked, feeling a bit foolish for talking to a child who couldn’t yet answer his questions. She had already begun steadying herself again, taking small steps forward so that she could reach up and pat her hands against his face.

“ _Pah_ ,” she huffed again, seemingly frustrated. He wondered where Alina was. Anya had a habit of wandering off from her mother, it seemed, something he would rarely of dared to do to his own when he was young. The circumstances were vastly different, of course, though he found himself thinking that their daughter was far more like her mother than she was him.

“Stubborn like your _madraya_ ,” he said, lifting Anya up before standing once more. She cooed in delight, barely wriggling in his grip when he held her. “And you both seem to enjoy running away from the places you’re expected to be, too.”

“Papa,” Anya blurted out loudly, and he froze in place. A stream of happy laughter poured from the infant’s lips, brightening her eyes and wiping away all traces of her earlier irritation. “Papa! Papa!”  
  
 _That’s what you were trying to say?_ He thought, a strange feeling stirring in his chest as he examined her that he tried to shrug away.

“I guess I am,” he told the little one quietly. It would be another name he could add to his list, reluctantly stitching itself onto his heart, right next to _Aleksander_.

Some names are truer than the rest, after all.

“Let’s go find your mama,” he said, carrying Anya towards the stairs. She continued to chant her new word merrily, the sound bell-like and innocent in his ears.

Something in his heart began to shift, quietly, unnoticed.

.

.

.

Five years passed as if they were nothing, and their daughter had begun to grow.

Through this time, they had discovered many things about their little girl. She was disinclined to enjoy northern cuisine, just like her father, but while she liked sweets just as much as any other young one she was picky on which she ate. She seemed to favor the color yellow, and she wasn’t afraid of the dark, though thunderstorms sometimes made her cry. Small details, tiny little pieces that made up the whole of her, and yet one fact stood out powerfully to father and mother both: Anya was Grisha, but she could not summon shadows or suns.

“A Squaller,” Aleksander finally said out loud, shaping the words in his mouth as if he could not quite manage to get them out. They tasted bitter on his tongue, unwanted, though he was cool as ice when Alina walked up to him. He was propped against their front doorway, still as death and almost as quiet.

“You’re not surprised.” Her voice was soft. He couldn’t bring himself to look back at her, to see the sorrow paint itself across her face. _I told you_ , he wanted to tell her. _You knew it would be this way._

Instead, he said, “No.” Because he wasn’t. He’d known Anya had power in her from the very first brush of their skin, the very second her small little fist had clung to his finger. What he had not anticipated was the hope that had built in the recent years, constantly at war with experience and common sense. He’d thought his heart too old and jaded for such a foolish thing, but there it had been—hidden, but swiftly crushed the moment he’d seen his daughter manipulate the wind.

Being wrong was still a new concept to him.

“It’ll be okay,” Alina said, creeping closer and slipping her arms around his waist. He stared outside, watching Anya chase a butterfly in the sun. Silence, interrupted only by their daughter’s cheerful shouts from the yard, stretched between them before he asked, “Will it?” and she could hear the doubt in his voice, could feel his ash heart quivering in his chest beneath his skin with every word.

 _He has grown to love her_ , she discovered, and all at once she wanted to force him to face her, to cup his cheeks in her hands and swear that it would not be the way he thought it would be. That their daughter would not join the rest and fade to dust.

But she could not promise him this, could not tell him there would be no ache to follow.

 _Pain is the price we must pay to love,_ she thought to herself instead, holding him closer, tighter, and when she felt his hands raise up to cup her own over his chest, his fingers squeezing gently lightly curled fists, she could only bury her face into his back to hide her tears. _You tried so hard not to care._

“I’ll teach her,” he said. “How to use her powers. As best as I can, considering the circumstances.”  
  
His tone said that it wasn’t something up for debate, but that was fine for Alina. It was the one thing she would never fight him on. She knew what it would cost her daughter to suppress something so integral to who she was, perhaps more-so than he did. She wouldn’t force her daughter to ignore her gift.

“Okay,” she whispered, letting them fall gently into silence once more.

.

.

.

Thunder boomed and crackled outside their small home, cutting through the silence of the night sharply and clearly. Alina had long since fallen asleep at his side in the bed, the strap of her nightgown sliding down her shoulder as she was twisting in her sleep. His arms were wrapped around her, his lips pressed gently to the back of her shoulder when he heard their door creak open.

“Papa? Mama?” Anya called quietly, an audible note of fear in her voice. Aleksander sighed to himself quietly, leaving a final kiss to Alina’s shoulder before detaching himself from her and rolling on to his back, perching up on his elbows so he could squint through the darkness in their room to the doorway, where Anya stood waiting and peering in.

“You should be in bed, Anya,” he said disapprovingly, through the way her little body began to shake as another bolt of lightning snapped across the sky caused him to open his arms. “Come in, then. Be quiet as a mouse, though; your _madraya_ is sleeping. It won’t due to wake her up, do you understand?”

Anya nodded enthusiastically, practically dashing across the wooden floors to crawl up on their bed, sliding into his arms with the warmth and trust that could only come from a child. Up close, he could see there were tear tracks on her face, and he could hear the small sniffles she tried to keep contained.

“I tried to be good,” she said, tone tremulous and sad as she confirmed his suspicions. “But I got so scared. I’m sorry, papa. I know you don’t like me acting like a little girl.”

“Don’t be foolish,” he said, feeling something in him crack as he said the words. He could see himself reflected in her so clearly, now, could see in her all the same things he had felt when he’d burdened his mother with his childish wants and foolish behavior. _She’s like you,_ Alina had said, and he hadn’t seen it back then. He was starting to think that he did. “You _are_ a child. It’s fine to be frightened.” At least for now.

“I don’t want to be a child, though,” Anya argued in a whisper. Another _boom_ echoed in the house, and she clung to him tighter. He took the opportunity to pull the blankets around her, as well, reclining back in the bed as he let her snuggle down next to him.

“I didn’t want to be a child when I was your age, either,” he confided quietly. “But there’s little to be done about things like time and aging. You’ll just have to wait to grow up.”

“Do I have to?” Anya grumbled, her fingers curling into her father’s shirt. Despite himself, he found a small smile tugging at his lips as he ruffled at her thick, dark hair. She was beginning to fall asleep already, lulled by the sound of his heartbeat and the warmth of the bed; this, Aleksander could tell, because when the next crackle of lightning sounded, she didn’t so much as flinch.

“I’m afraid so,” he said. “But it’s alright. I find that I quite like you how you are, Anya.”

“You’re my papa,” Anya said sleepily, and her giggle was so quiet he could barely hear it. “You don’t have a choice; you have t’ love me.” And then she was lost to the land of sleep, her breathing deep and even. He brushed his fingers through her hair, expression somber as another wave of understanding crashed over him.

“So it seems,” he whispered to himself before closing his eyes, having grown tired from both a hard day’s work and lying to himself for all these years over that single truth. Unknown to him, from across the bed, Alina smiled.

It was about time.                               


End file.
